Bradley becomes aggressor
Comes out on fire and burns Wiz in Game 5
Three nights after he threatened to (expletive) up Marcin Gortat if the officials didn’t start calling him for illegal picks, Avery Bradley widened his target.
Gortat laughed off Bradley’s heat-of-the-moment warning, but today he and the Wizards are laughing out of the short side of a 3-2 series deficit.
And Bradley put them there, choosing to (insert bad word here) not just Gortat, but all of Washington and even a few of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
His playoff career-high 29 points were the largest factor in a 123-101 victory last night. He actually beat his previous postseason best by halftime, when he had 25 to eclipse the 24 he had in Game 5 against Chicago two weeks ago. This latest haul has the Celtics one game away from an Eastern Conference finals date with Cleveland.
OK, you can jump off that bridge when you get to it. For now, the Celts can be satisfied with the fact that for the first time in this series, they can truly say they outplayed the Wizards for nearly all 48 minutes.
Remember, it was coach Brad Stevens who said his C’s had been “pounded” for five of the eight quarters in Games 1 and 2, and those were wins.
Among the notable events in the two Celtics losses in D.C. that evened the series were Bradley suffering a right hip pointer in Game 3 and, to complete the matching set, a left hip pointer in Game 4. It was the latter that was most likely the cause of his anger with Gortat.
Because of those hips and a 17-point lead that ballooned to as many as 26 in the last quarter, Bradley did not return after the end of the third.
“He played like he’s supposed to,” said Isaiah Thomas, who made one shot and had five points at the half before finishing with 18. “He played through it. It’s the playoffs, and we need him to play that way. He put his injuries aside and laced his shoes up and played. He was the key to this game on both ends of the floor — offensively, defensively. He did it all, and we need that from him; especially even in Game 6 we’re going to need that from him.
“I’m proud of him. I told him before the game that I believe in him and he’s going to have a big game, and he did.”
Thomas and even Celtics TV play-by-play man Mike Gorman texted Bradley prior to this one.
“They told me they felt like it was going to be a big game for me,” he confirmed.
He’d already made up his mind to do so. He was Angry Avery, even picking up a rare technical foul (though not for menacing any of the Wizards). He’d gone a combined 5-for-17 from the floor in the D.C. losses, and he’d had about enough of this.
Two days of treatment on his hips had helped his movement. Two days of vengeance plotting helped his head.
“My mindset was just to come out and be aggressive,” Bradley said. “I wanted to be aggressive. I wanted to make those guys work on both ends of the floor. And I knew that I haven’t been playing to my ability on the offensive end the last two games, and for this team, I wanted to bring my all.
“I wanted to take the open shots that were there and make plays for guys, and that’s what I tried to do tonight.”
He missed his first two shots, then hit the next six — two of them 3-pointers — to guide the Celts to a 33-21 lead after one.
By halftime, the C’s were up 16, but the margin seemed greater because they were shooting 58 percent and getting the looks they wanted.
With Al Horford on his way to 19 points (on 8-of-9 shooting) and Jae Crowder en route to 18, the Wizards were being made to pay for their attention to Thomas.
“Just give him credit,” said Washington star John Wall of Bradley. “He came out and got hot early on. He was 10-for-13 at the half for 25 points. That’s a big key. And I think Al had 11 and Jae had 14.
“We had those guys pretty much held the last two games. I mean, role players play better at home. We’ve got to do a better job of keying on those guys also and not giving them open looks. The last two games we were contesting just about every shot, and tonight they got easy looks.”
Added Wiz coach Scott Brooks, “We had an off shooting night. We’ve got to play better, but they played well. Boston played a good basketball game, and Avery was on fire. Al was terrific. We had no answers for those guys. We’ve done a pretty good job on their best player, but not a good enough job on the other guys.”
Though clearly this roster will have a different look in a couple of months, the cast as presently constituted has desperately needed these counterpoints to Thomas. If playoff opponents are going to load up to stop him, then others need to take advantage of the looks that will be presented.
“That’s one of the strengths of our team,” said Bradley. “We have a lot of guys that can fill it up on any given night. It just happened to be me tonight.
“We just have to have that mindset to be prepared to be aggressive on the offensive end. It can’t just be Isaiah Thomas every single night. And if we’re able to understand that and he’s able to believe in us, I feel like the sky’s the limit for us.”
Avery may want to leave the sky out of it for now, particularly the atmosphere in Cleveland. What happened here is what Thomas said after Game 4 needed to happen. People on the Celtics not named Isaiah have to play with confidence and an edge.
Bradley simply proved the theory correct.